Product Details
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (October 14, 2025)
- Hardcover 352 pages
- ISBN-10: 1324050640
- ISBN-13: 978-1324050643
To Order
A Wall Street Journal best book of October 2025
One of Hadassah Magazine’s best books of 2025
One of Religion News Service’s top ten books of 2025
From award-winning scholar Pamela S. Nadell comes a powerful, new narrative of the American past. Antisemitism, an American Tradition shows old ideas about “evil Jews” twinned to new, antisemitic conspiracy theories and lies circulating throughout American history from colonial times to today. Drawing on the voices of Jewish men, women, and children who carried memories of this hate across their lives, this history proves that antisemitism in the US was never an aberration. It was and remains today an American tradition.
“Persuasive. . . . A strength of Ms. Nadell’s book is her blunt identification of antisemitism irrespective of politics, race or religion. It is unfortunate, and distressing, that she has such a wealth of material to draw on. . . At the same time, the book provides grounds for hope.” ― Wall Street Journal
“[A] vital and unsettling new book . . . Nadell’s work is not a lament; it is a map. It tells us where we stand, so that we can choose where to go.” ― Religion News Service
“At a time when antisemitic incidents are on the rise, Nadell has, to her great credit, catalogued a disturbing side of American history that adds nuance to the widespread belief that the American experience has been a uniquely welcoming one for Jew.”― Hadassah Magazine
“A searching history of religious intolerance in putatively pluralist America. . . An urgent and provocative work on the history of hostility to American Jews.” ― Kirkus
“Nadell’s work highlights the seriousness of antisemitism in America, its permeation through the centuries never went away, no matter how much we tried to ignore it.” ― Pittsburgh Review of Books
“[An] impeccable new book on anti-Semitism . . . both concise and fairly comprehensive. It is also timely . . . The lesson that jumps off the pages of Nadell’s book is not that some forms of anti-Semitism are harmless but that all forms of anti-Semitism are connected and will, with the reliability of a law of physics, proceed toward violence unless acted upon by an outside force.”― Commentary
“Since there isn’t a question mark in the new title, readers have a sense from the beginning that she is convinced of this thesis. Her evidence, marshalled carefully and in full detail, bears out every concern that American Jews have ever had. It’s worse – and more pernicious – than most of us thought.” ― Haaretz
“In her timely – and unfortunately timeless – new book, “Antisemitism, An American Tradition, Professor Pamela Nadell asserts that until recently, American Jews believed that the worst antisemitism was behind us….Her 250 pages, covering 370 years, detail how, from the very beginning, Jews have experienced antisemitism.”―Times Of Israel
“The book comes at a time when certain sectors of America have become feverish with hatred towards Jewish people.,,Perhaps the universities can make Antisemitism, An American Tradition required reading.”― Washington Examiner
“Nadell’s somber and sobering book serves as a chronicle and a warning. ”― Jewish Book Council
“Coming at a time of increased antisemitic incidents both before and after the start of the Gaza War, Nadell’s book provides much useful context to the recurrence of antisemitic outrages throughout American history. ”― Moment Magazine
“This is the book that the world needs now, a bracing narrative of dark chapters from America’s past–history which continues to stalk the nation. Nadell writes with command and a detective’s sense for where buried episodes of antisemitism can be found.”
― Franklin Foer, author of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future
“Today it has become common to hear people lament the rise of American antisemitism with words akin to “I never thought I would see this in America.” Pamela Nadell, with her well-proven skill of making the historically complex highly accessible, demonstrates that this is not a new phenomenon. it is an American tradition. Anyone who has been scared, perplexed, or surprised by the current expressions of antisemitism in America should read this book. Anyone who has not, should read it as well.”
―Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt, author of Antisemitism: Here and Now
“Congratulations to Pamela Nadell for a well-documented book on the always present disease of antisemitism in America and how it has metastasized in lost opportunities and violence during our country’s 250-plus year history. The illustrative examples powerfully demonstrate the historic and current challenges for Jews in America.”
― Former Senator Ben Cardin, Maryland
“Pamela S. Nadell understands that ‘antisemitism was and remains a powerful American tradition.’ In this timely and comprehensive book, she courageously bares that tradition, unveiling a darker side of American Jewish history that has, for far too long, lain hidden from view.”
― Jonathan D. Sarna, author of American Judaism
“No book could be more timely than Pamela Nadell’s magisterial history of American antisemitism. Reading her meticulous account of over two centuries of anti-Jewish rhetoric, agitation, and physical violence helps us to better understand the nature of today’s antisemitism.”
― Michael Brenner, author of In Hitler’s Munich
Book Events
Highlights of Pamela Nadell’s book tour include conversations with The Atlantic‘s Franklin Foer at New York’s Center for Jewish History on September 29, former Maryland Center Ben Cardin at Washington, DC’s Politics and Prose Book Store on October 14, and The New York Times’s Bret Stephens at Pittsburgh’s The Tree of Life of October 19. Already, more than fifty book events are scheduled. Visit Events page to see the full list.
January 18, 2026 Antisemitism, an American Tradition, Hebrew College & Jewish Genealogical Society of Boston, Virtual
January 20, 2026 70 Faces Media in partnership with UJA Federation of NY on Zoom
January 22, 2026 Antisemitism, an American Tradition Book Launch, Aaron Family Jewish Community Center, Dallas, TX
January 24, 2026 Antisemitism, an American Tradition, Book Talk, Kol Shalom, Rockville, MD
January 27, 2026 Antisemitism, an American Tradition Book Event, Columbia University, New York City
January 28, 2026 Yale University, Yale Program for the Study of Antisemitism